When attempting to change toxic safety cultures in aviation SMS, the two primary aspects of safety culture that organizations should try and influence are:

Communication; and

Awareness.

With good communication and awareness, other aspects of safety culture tend to follow with a type of domino effect. In other words, awareness easily leads to behavior; justness leads to commitment.

1 – Get Upper Management Support

When it comes to changing toxic safety cultures in aviation SMS, upper management needs to support the SMS. If upper management is not totally supportive, then the safety culture has little hope for change.

Even with an excellent safety leader/champion, the top-down nature of safety culture means that poor safety culture in upper management will always undermine efforts of a safety champion. Good ways to get upper management support are demonstrating:

Financial benefit of supporting the SMS;

Ability to enhance airline / airport reputation;

Separating airline / airport from the competition;

How SMS is socially responsible;

How SMS can be used as a marketing/sales tool; and

Most importantly, how upper management can take responsibility for improvement and success of aviation SMS.

Furthermore, in situations of toxic safety cultures, you can also point out to safety executives how much the poor safety culture can negatively influence company reputation, compliance, etc.

2 – Accountable Executive Support of SMS

In addition to upper management support, your accountable executive needs to spearhead the safety program. Their role is to set the tone and concern for the SMS that will be adopted by the company.

Accountable managers should:

Gather appropriate budget for safety program;

Always attend safety meetings;

Regularly meet with safety manager to debrief on important safety topics;

5 – Invest in Physical Safety Promotion

Though things like posters and other forms of physical safety promotion will probably become “background noise” for employees, it’s hard to underestimate how important imbuing your environment with safety promotion can be.

Even though employees might not be actively reading the safety promotion posters and other items, having these items everywhere it a way of conditioning employees to:

Be mindful of safety;

Behave safely; and

Accept the SMS.

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